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English CAT Nov, 2008

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English Verbal Ability Test

Directions (Qs. 1 to 4) : In each of these questions, a word has been used in sentences in five different ways. Choose the option corresponding to the sentence in which the usage of the word is incorrect or inappropriate.

1. Run

A. I must run fast to catch up with him.

B. Our team scored a goal against the run of play.

C. You can’t run over him like that.

D. The newly released book is enjoying a popular run.

E. This film is a run-of-the-mill production

2. Round

A. The police fired a round of tear gas shells.

B. The shop is located round the corner.

C. We took a ride on the merry go-round.

D. The doctor is on a hospital round.

E. I shall proceed further only after you come round to admitting it.

3. Buckle

A. After the long hike our knees were beginning to buckle.

B. The horse suddenly broke into a buckle.

C. The accused did not buckle under police interrogation.

D. Sometimes, an earthquake can make a bridge buckle.

E. People should learn to buckle up as soon as they get into a car.

4. File

A. You will find the paper in the file under C.

B. I need to file an insurance claim.

C. The cadets were marching in a single file.

D. File your nails before you apply nail polish.

E. When the parade was on, a soldier broke the file.

Directions (Qs. 5 to 8) : Each of the following questions has a sentence with two blanks. Given below each question are five pairs of words. Choose the pair that best completes the sentence.

5. The genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda, apart from being misdescribed in the most sinister and ------- manner as ‘ethnic cleansing’, were also blamed, in further hand-washing rhetoric, on something dark and interior to ------ and perpetrators alike.

A. innovative; communicator

B. enchanting; leaders

C. disingenuous; victims

D. exigent; exploiters

E. tragic; sufferers

6. As navigators, calendar makers, and other -------- of the night sky accumulated evidence to the contrary, ancient astronomers were forced to ------- that certain bodies might move in circles about points, which in turn moved in circles about the earth.

A. scrutinizers; believe

B. observers; agree

C. scrutinizers; suggest

D. observers; concede

E. students; conclude

7. Every human being, after the first few days of his life, is a product of two factors: on the one hand, there is his ------- endowment; and on the other hand, there is the effect of environment, including ------- .

A. constitutional; weather

B. congenital; education

C. personal; climate

D. economic; learning

E. genetic; pedagogy

8. Exhaustion of natural resources, destruction of individual initiative by governments, control over men’s minds by central ------ of education and propaganda are some of the major evils which appear to be on the increase as a result of the impact of science upon minds suited by ------- to an earlier kind of world.

A. tenets; fixation

B. aspects; inhibitions

C. institutions; inhibitions

D. organs; tradition

E. departments; repulsion

Directions (Qs. 9 to 12) : In each of the following questions there are sentences that form a paragraph. Identify the sentence(s) or part(s) of sentence(s) that is / are correct in terms of grammar and usage (including spelling, punctuation and logical consistency). Then, choose the most appropriate option.

A. In 1849, a poor Bavarian immigrant named Levi Strauss

B. landed in San Francisco, California,

C. at the invitation of his brother-in-law David Stern

D. owner of dry goods business.

E. This dry goods business would later became known as Levi Strauss & Company.

A. B Only

B. B and C

C. A and B

D. A only

E. A, B and D

10.

A. In response to the allegations and condemnation pouring in,

B. Nike implemented comprehensive changes in their labour policy.

C. Perhaps sensing the rising tide of global labour concerns,

D. From the public would become a prominent media issue,

E. Nike sought to be a industry leader in employee relations.

A. D and E

B. D

C. A and E

D. A and D

E. B, C and E

11.

A. Charges and countercharges mean nothing

B. to the few million who have lost their home.

C. The nightmare is far from over, for the government

D. Is still unable to reach hundreds who are marooned.

E. The death count have just begun.

12.

A. I did not know what to make of you.

B. Because you’d lived in India, I associate you more with my parents than with me.

C. And yet you were unlike my cousins in Calcutta, who seem so innocent and obedient when I visited them.

D. You were not curious about me in the least.

E. Although you did make efforts to meet me.

A. A only

B. A and B

C. A and E

D. D only

E. D and E

Directions (Qs. 13 to 16) : In each question, there are five sentences. Each sentence has a pair of words that are italicized and highlighted. From the italicized and highlighted words, select the most appropriate words (A or B) to form correct sentences. The sentences are followed by options that indicate the words, which may be selected to correctly complete the set of sentences, From the options given, chose the most appropriate one.

13. Anita wore a beautiful broach (A) / brooch (B) on the lapel of her jacket.

If you want to complain about the amenities in your neighborhood, please meet your councilor (A) / counselor (B).

I would like your advice (A) / Advise (B) on which job I should choose.

The last scene provided a climactic (A) / climatic (B) ending to the film.

Jeans that flair (A) / flare (B) at the bottom are in fashion these days.

A. BABAA

B. BABAB

C. BAAAB

D. ABABA

E. BAABA

14. The cake had lots of currents (A) / currants (B) and nuts in it.

If you engage in such exceptional (A) / exceptionable (B) behavior, I will be forced to punish you.

He has the same capacity as an adult to consent (A) / assent (B) to surgical treatment.

The minister is obliged (A) / compelled (B) to report regularly to a parliamentary board.

His analysis of the situation is far too sanguine (A) / genuine (B).

A. BBABA

B. BBAAA

C. BBBBA

D. ABBAB

E. BABAB

15. She managed to bite back the ironic (A) / caustic (B) retort on the tip of her tongue.

He gave an impassioned and valid (A) / cognet (B) plea for judicial reform.

I am not adverse (A) / averse (B) to helping out.

The coupe (A) / coup (B) broke away as the train climbed the hill.

They heard the bells peeling (A) / pealing (B) far and wide.

A. BBABA

B. BBBAB

C. BAABB

D. ABBAA

E. BBBBA

16. We were not successful in defusing (A) / diffusing (B) the Guru’s ideas.

The students baited (A) / bated (B) the instructor with irrelevant questions.

The hoard (A) / horde (B) rushed into the campus.

The prisoner’s interment (A) / internment (B) came to an end with his early release.

The hockey team could not deal with his unsociable (A) / unsocial (B) tendencies.

A. BABBA

B. BBABB

C. BABAA

D. ABBAB

E. AABBA

Directions (Qs. 17 to 20) : Each of these questions has a paragraph from which the last sentence has been deleted. From the given options, choose the sentence that completes the paragraph in the most appropriate way.

17. Most people at their first consultation take a furtive look at the surgeon’s hands in the hope of reassurance. Prospective patients look for delicacy, sensitivity, steadiness, perhaps unblemished pallor. On this basis, Henry Perowne loses a number of cases each year. Generally, he knows it’s about to happen before the patient does : the downward glance repeated, the prepared questions beginning to falter, the overemphatic thanks during the retreat to the door.

A. Other people do not communicate due to their poor observation.

B. Other patients don’t like what they see but are ignorant of their right to go elsewhere.

C. But Perowne himself is not concerned.

D. But others will take their place, he thought

E. These hands are steady enough, but they are large.

18. Trade protectionism, disguised as concern for the climate, is raising its head. Citing competitiveness concerns, powerful industrialized countries are holding out threats of a levy on imports of energy-intensive products from developing countries that refuse to accept their demands. The actual source of protectionist sentiment in the OECD countries is, of course, their current lackluster economic performance, combined with the challenges posed by the rapid economic rise of China and India—in that order.

A. Climate change is evoked to bring trade protectionism through the back door.

B. OECD countries are taking refuge in climate change issues to erect trade barriers against these two countries.

C. Climate change concerns have come as a convenient stick to beat the rising trade power of China and India.

D. Defenders of the global economic status quo are posing as climate change champions.

E. Today’s climate change champions are the perpetrators of global economic inequity.

19. Mattancherry is Indian Jewry’s most famous settlement. Its pretty streets of pastel coloured houses, connected by first-floor passages and home to the last twelve saree-and-sarong-wearing, white-skinned India Jews are visited by thousands of tourists each year. Its synagogue, built in 1568, with a floor of blue-and-white Chinese tiles, a carpet given by Haile Selassie and the frosty Yaheh selling tickets at the door, stands as an image of religious tolerance.

A. Mattancherry represents, therefore, the perfect picture of peaceful co-existence.

B. India’s Jews have almost never suffered discrimination, except for European colonizer and each other.

C. Jews in India were always tolerant.

D. Religious tolerance has always been only a façade and nothing more.

E. The pretty pastel streets are, thus, very popular with the tourists.

20. Given the cultural and intellectual interconnections, the question of what is “Western” and what is “Eastern” (or “Indian”) is often hard to decide, and the issue can be discussed only in more dialectical terms. The diagnosis of a thought as, “purely Western” or “purely Indian” can be very illusory.

A. Thoughts are not the kind of things that can be easily categorized.

B. Though “Occidentalism” and “orientalism” as dichotomous concepts have found many adherents.

C. “East is East and West is West” has been a discredited notion for long time now.

D. Compartmentalizing thoughts is often desirable.

E. The origin of a thought is not the kind of thing to which “purity” happens easily.

Directions (Qs. 21 to 25) : The passage given below is followed by a set of five questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

To summarize the Classic Maya collapse, we can tentatively identify five strands. I acknowledge, however, that Maya archaeologists still disagree vigorously among themselves in part, because the different strands evidently varied in importance among different parts of the Maya realm; because detailed archaeological studies are available for only some Maya sites; and because it remains puzzling why most of the Maya heartland remained nearly empty of population and failed to recover after the collapse and after re-growth of forests.

With those caveats, it appears to me that one strand consisted of population growth outstripping available resources: a dilemma similar to the one foreseen by Thomas Malthus in 1798 and being played out today in Rwanda, Haiti and elsewhere. As the archacologist David Webster succinctly puts it, “Too many farmers grew too many crops on too much of landscape.” Compounding that mismatch between population and resources was the second strand: the effects of deforestation and hillside erosion, which caused a decrease in the amount of usable farmland at a time when more rather than less farmland was needed, and possibly exacerbated by an anthropogenic drought resulting from deforestation, by soil nutrient depletion and other soil nutrient depletion and other soil problems, and by the struggle to prevent bracken ferns from overrunning the fields. The third strand consisted of increased fighting, as more and more people fought over fewer resources. Maya warfare, already endemic, peaked just before the collapse. That is not surprising when one reflects that at least five million people, perhaps many more, were crammed into an area smaller than the US state of Colorado (104,000 square miles). That warfare would have decreased further the amount of land available for agriculture, by creating no-man’s lands between principalities where it was now unsafe to farm. Bringing matters to a head was the strand of climate change. The drought at the time of the Classic collapse was not the first drought that the Maya had lived through, but it was the most severe. At the time of previous droughts, there were still uninhabited parts of the Maya landscape, and people at a site affected by drought could save themselves by moving to another site. However, by the time of the Classic collapse the landscape was now full, there was no useful unoccupied land in the vicinity on which to begin anew, and the whole population could not be accommodated in the few areas that continued to have reliable water supplies.

As our fifth strand, we have to wonder why the kings and nobles failed to recognize and solve these seemingly obvious problems undermining their society. Their attention was evidently focused on their short-term concerns of enriching themselves, waging wars, erecting monuments, competing with each other , and extracting enough food from the peasants to support all those activities. Like most leaders throughout human history, the Maya kings and nobles did not heed long-term problems, insofar as they perceived them. Finally, while we still have some other past societies to consider before we switch our attention to the modern world, we must already be struck by some parallels between the Maya and the past societies. As on Mangareva, the Maya environmental and population problems led to increasing warfare and civil strife. Similarly, on Easter Island and at Chaco Canyon, the Maya peak population numbers were followed swiftly by political and social collapse. Paralleling the eventual extension of agriculture from Easter Island’s coastal lowlands to its uplands, and from the Mimbres floodplain to the hills, Copan’s inhabitants also expanded from the floodplain to the more fragile hill slopes, leaving them with a larger population to feed when the agricultural boom in the hills went bust. Like Easter Island chiefs erecting ever larger statues, eventually crowned by themselves to necklaces of 2,000 turquoise beads Maya kings sought to outdo each other with more and more impressive temples, covered with thicker and thicker plaster—reminiscent in turn of the extravagant conspicuous consumption by modern American CEOs. The passivity of Easter chiefs and Maya kings in the face of the real big threats to their societies completes our list of disquieting parallels.

21. According to the passage, which of the following best represents the factor that has been cited by the author in the context of Rwanda and Haiti?

A. Various ethnic groups competing for land and other resources

B. Various ethnic groups competing for limited land resources

C. Various ethnic groups fighting with each other

D. Various ethnic groups competing for political power

E. Various ethnic groups fighting for their identity

22. By an anthropogenic drought, the author means

A. a drought caused by lack of rains.

B. a drought caused due to deforestation.

C. A drought caused by failure to prevent bracken ferns from overrunning the fields.

D. A drought caused by actions of human beings.

E. A drought caused by climate changes.

23. According to the passage, the drought at the time of Maya collapse had a different impact compared to the droughts earlier because

A. the Maya kings continued to be extravagant when common people were suffering.

B. it happened at the time of collapse of leadership among Mayas.

C. It happened when the Maya population had occupied all available land suited for agriculture.

D. It was followed by internecine warfare among Mayans.

E. Irreversible environmental degradation led to his drought.

24. According to the author, why is it difficult to explain the reasons for Maya collapse?

A. Copan inhabitants destroyed all records of that period

B. The constant deforestation and hillside erosion have wiped out all traces of the Maya kingdom

C. Archaeological sites of Mayas do not provide any consistent evidence

D. It has not been possible to ascertain which of the factors best explains as to why the Maya civilization collapsed

E. At least five million people were crammed into a small area

25. Which factor has not been cited as one of the factors causing the collapse of Maya society?

A. Environmental degradation due to excel population

B. Social collapse due to excess population

C. Increased warfare among Maya people

D. Climate change

E. Obsession of Maya population with their own short-term concerns

Directions (Qs. 26 to 30) : The passage given below is followed by a set of five questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

A remarkable aspect of art of the present century is the range of concepts and ideologies which it embodies. It is almost tempting to see a pattern emerging within the art field—or alternatively imposed upon it a posteriori—similar to that which exist under the umbrella of science where the general term covers a whole range of separate, though interconnecting, activities. Any parallelism is however—in this instance at least—misleading. A scientific discipline develops systematically once its bare tenets have been established. Named and categorized as conventions. Many of the concepts of modern art, by contrast, have resulted from the almost accidental meetings of groups of talented individuals at certain times and certain places. The ideas generated by these chance meetings had twofold consequences. Firstly, a corpus of work would be produced which, in great part, remains as a concrete record of the events. Secondly, the ideas would themselves be disseminated through many different channels of communication—seeds that often bore fruit in contexts far removed from their generation. Not all movements were exclusively concerned with innovation. Surrealism, for instance, claimed to embody a kind of insight which can be present in the art of any period. This claim has been generally accepted so that sixteenth century painting by Spranger or a mysterious photograph by Atget can legitimately be discussed in surrealist terms. Briefly, then, the concepts of modern art are of many different (often fundamentally different) kinds and resulted from the exposures of painters, sculptors and thinkers to the more complex phenomena of the twentieth century, including our ever increasing knowledge of the thought and products of earlier centuries. Different groups of artists would collaborate in trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world of visual and spiritual experience. We should hardly be surprised if no one group succeeded completely, but achievements, though relative, have been considerable. Landmarks have been established—concrete statements of position which give a pattern to a situation which could easily have degenerated into total chaos. Beyond this, new language tools have been created for those who follow—semantic systems which can provide a springboard for further explorations. The codifying of art is often criticized. Certainly one can understand that artists are wary of being pigeon-holed since they are apt to think of themselves as individuals—sometimes with good reason. The notion of self-expression. However, no longer carries quite the weight it once did; objectivity has its defenders. There is good reason to accept the ideas codified by artist and critics, over the past sixty years or so, as having attained the status of independent existence—an independence which is not without its own value. The time factor is important here.. As an art movement slips into temporal perspective, it ceases to be a living organism—becoming, rather, a fossil. This is not to say that it becomes useless or uninteresting. Just as a scientist can reconstruct the life of a prehistoric environment from the messages codified into the structure of a fossil, so can an artist decipher whole webs of intellectual and creative possibility from the recorded structure of a ‘dead’ art movement. The artist can match the creative patterns crystallized into this structure against the potentials and possibilities of his own time. As T.S.Eliot observed, no one starts anything from scratch; however consciously you may try to live in the present, you are still involved with a nexus of behaviour patterns bequearthed from the past. The original and creative person is not someone who ignores these patterns, but someone who is able to translate and develop them so that they conform more exactly to his—and our—present needs.

26. Many of the concepts of modern art have been the product of

A. ideas generated from planned deliberations between artists, painters and thinkers.

B. the dissemination of ideas through the state and its organizations.

C. Accidental interactions among people blessed with creative muse.

D. Patronage by the rich and powerful that supported art.

E. Systematic investigation, codification and conventions.

27. In the passage, the word ‘fossil’ can be interpreted as

A. an art movement that has ceased to remain interesting or useful.

B. an analogy from the physical world to indicate a historic art movement.

C. An analogy from the physical world to indicate the barrenness of artistic creations in the past.

D. An embedded codification of prehistoric life.

E. An analogy from the physical world to indicate the passing of an era associated with an art movement.

28. In the passage, which of the following similarities between science and art may lead to erroneous conclusions?

A. Both, in general, include a gamut of distinct but interconnecting activities

B. Both have movements not necessarily concerned with innovation

C. Both depend on collaborations between talented individuals

D. Both involve abstract thought and dissemination of ideas

E. Both reflect complex priorities of the modern world

29. The range of concepts and ideologies embodied in the art of the twentieth certury is explained by

A. the existence of movements such as surrealism.

B. landmarks which give a pattern to the art history of the twentieth century.

C. New language tools which can be used for further explorations into new areas.

D. The fast changing world of perceptual and transcendental understanding.

E. The quick exchange of ideas and concepts enabled by efficient technology.

30. The passage user an observation by T.S. Eliot to imply that

A. Creative processes are not ‘original’ because they always borrow from the past.

B. We always carry forward the legacy of the past.

C. Past behaviours and thought processes recreate themselves in the present and get labeled as ‘original’ or ‘creative’.

D. ‘originality’ can only thrive in a ‘greenhouse’ insulated from the past biases.

E. ‘innovations’ and ‘original thinking’ interpret and develop on past thoughts to suit contemporary needs.

Directions (Qs. 31 to 35) : The passage given below is followed by a set of five questions. Choose the most appropriate ansewer to each question.

When I was little, children were brought two kinds of ice cream, sold from those white wagons with canopies made of silvery metal : either the two-cent cone or the four-cent ice-cream pie. The two-cent cone was very small, in fact it could fit comfortably into a child’s hand, and it was made by taking the ice cream from its container with a special scoop and piling it on the cone. Granny always suggested I eat only a part of the cone, then throw away the pointed end, because it had been touched by the vendor’s hand (though that was the best part, nice and crunchy, and it was regularly eaten in secret, after a pretence of discarding it).

The four-cent pie was made by a special little machine, also silvery, which pressed two disks of sweet biscuit against a cylindrical section of ice cream. First you had to thrust your tongue into the gap between the biscuits until it touched the central nucleus of ice cream; then, gradually, you are the whole thing, the biscuit surface softening as they became soaked in creamy nectar. Ganny had no advice to give here : in theory the pies had been touched only by the machine; in practice, the vendor had held them in his hand while giving them to us, but it was impossible to isolate the contaminated area. I was fascinated, however, by some of my peers, whose parents bought them not a four-cent pie but tow tow-cent cones. These privileged children advanced proudly with one cone in their right hand and one in their lift; and expertly moving their head from side to side, they licked first one, then the other. This liturgy seemed to me so sumptuously, enviable, that many times I asked to be allowed to celebrate it. In vain, My elders were inflexible; a four-cent ice, yes; but two two-cent cones, absolutely no.

As anyone can see, neither mathematics nor economy nor dietetics justified this refusal. Nor did hygiene, assuming that in due course the tips of both cones were discarded. The pathetic, and obviously mendacious, justification was that a boy concerned with turning his eyes from one cone to the other was more inclined to stumble over stones, steps, or cracks in the pavement. I dimly sensed that there was another secret justification, cruelly pedagogical, but I was unable to grasp it.

Today citizen and victim of a consumer society, a civilization of excess and waste (which the society of the thirties was not), I realize that those dear and now departed elders were right. Two two-cent cones instead of one at four cents did not signify squandering, economically speaking, but symbolically they surely did.

It was for this precise reason, that I yearned for them : because two ice creams suggested excess. And this was precisely why they were denied to me : because they looked indecent, an insult to poverty, a display of fictitious privilege, a boast of wealth. Only spoiled children are two cones at once, those children who in fairy tales were rightly punished, as Pinocchio was when he rejected the skin and the stalk. And parents who encouraged this weakness, appropriate to little parvenus, were bringing up their children in the foolish theatre of “I’d like to but I can’t”. They were preparing them to turn up at tourist-class check-in with a fake Gucci bag bought from a street peddler on the beach at Rimini.

Nowadays the moralist risks seeming at odds with morality, in a world where the consumer civilization now wants even adults to be spoiled, and promised them always something more, from the wristwatch in the box of detergent to the bonus bangle sheathed, with that magazine it accompanies, in a plastic envelope. Like the parents of those ambidextrous gluttons I so envied, the consumer civilization pretends to give more, but actually gives, for four cents, what is worth four cents. You will throwaway the old transistor radio to purchase the new one, that boasts an alarm clock as well, but some inexplicable defect in the mechanism will guarantee that the radio lasts only a year. The new cheap car will have leather seats, double side mirrors adjustable from will not last nearly so long as the glorious old Fiat 500 which, even when it broke down, could be started again with a kick.

The morality of the old days made Spartans of us all, while today’s morality wants all of us to Sybarites.

31. Which of the following cannot be inferred from the passage?

A. Today’s society is more extravagant than the society of the 1930s

B. The act of eating two ice cream cones is akin to a ceremonial process

C. Elders rightly suggested that a boy turning eyes from one cone to the other was more likely to fall.

D. Despite seeming to promise more, the consumer civilization gives away exactly what the thing is worth

E. The consumer civilization attempts to spil children and adults alike

32. In the passage, the phrase “little parvenus”, refers to

A. naughty midgets.

B. old hags.

C. Arrogant people.

D. Young upstart.

E. Foolish kids.

33. The author pitied for two tow-cent cones instead of one four-cent pie because

A. it made dietetic sense.

B. it suggested intemperance

C. it was more fun.

D. It had a visual appeal.

E. He was a glutton.

34. What does the author mean by “nowadays the moralist risks seeming at odds with morality”?

A. The moralists of yesterday have become immoral today

B. The concept of morality has changed over the years

C. Consumerism is amoral

D. The risks associated with immorality have gone up

E. The purist’s view of morality is fast becoming popular

35. According to the author, the justification for refusal t let him eat two cones was plausibly

A. didactic

B. dietetic

C. dialectic

D. diatonic

E. diastolic.

Directions (Qs. 36 to 40) : The passage given below is followed by a set of five questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.

Language is not a cultural artifact that we learn the way we learn to tell time or how the federal government works. Instead, it is a distinct piece of the biological makeup of or brains. Language is a complex, specialized skill, which develops in the child spontaneously without conscious effort or formal instruction, is deployed without awareness of its underlying logic, is qualitatively the same in every individual, and is distinct from more general abilities to process information or behave intelligently. For these reasons some cognitive scientists have described language as a psychological faculty, a mental organ, a neural system, and a computational module. But I prefer the admittedly quaint term “instinct”. It conveys the idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders know how to spin webs. Web-spinning was not invented by some unsung spider genius and does not depend on having had the right education or on having an aptitude for architecture or the construction trades. Rather, spiders spin spider webs because they have spider brains, which give them the urge to spin and the competence to succeed. Although there are differences between webs and words. I will encourage you to see language in this way, for it helps to make sense of the phenomena we will explore.

Thinking of language as an instinct inverts the popular wisdom, especially as it has been passed down in the canon of the humanities and social sciences. Language is no more a cultural invention than is upright posture. It is not a manifestation of a general capacity to use symbols : a three-year-old, we shall see, is a grammatical genius but is quite incompetent at the visual arts, religious iconography, traffic signs, and the other staples of the somiotics curriculum. Though language is a magnificent ability unique to Homo sapiens among living species, it does not call for sequestering the study of humans from the domain of biology for a magnificent ability unique to a particular living species is far from unique in the animal kingdom. Some kinds of bats home in on flying insects using Doppler sonar. Some kinds of migratory birds navigate thousands of miles by calibrating the positions of the constellations against the time of day and year. In nature’s talent show, we are simply a species of primate with our own act, a knack for communicating information about who did what to whom by modulating the sounds we make when we exhale.

Once you begin to look at language not a s the ineffable essence of human uniqueness but as a biological adaptation to communicate information, it is no linger as tempting to see language as an insidious shaper of thought, and , we shall see, it is not. Moreover, seeing language as one of nature’s engineering marvels—an organ with “that perfection of structure and co-adaptation which justly excites our admiration,” in Darwin’s words—gives us a new respect for your ordinary Joe and the much-maligned, English language (or any language). The complexity of language, form the scientist’s point of view, is part of our biological birthright; it is not something that parents teach their children or something that must be elaborate in school—as Oscar Wilde said, “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.” A preschooler’s tacit knowledge of grammar is more sophisticated than the thickest style manual or the most state-of-art computer language system, and the same applies to all healthy human beings, even the notorious syntax-fracturing professional athlete and the, you know, like, inarticulate, teenage skateboarder. Finally, since language is the product of a well-engineered biological instinct we shall wee that it is not the nutty barrel of monkeys that entertainer-columnists make it out to be.

36. According to the passage, which of the following does not stem from popular wisdom on language?

A. Language is a cultural artifact

B. Language is a cultural invention

C. Language is learnt as we grow

D. Language is unique to Homo sapiens

E. Language is a psychological faculty.

37. Which of the following can be used to replace the “spiders know how to spin webs” analogy as used by the author?

A. A kitten learning to jump over a wall

B. Bees collecting nectar

C. A donkey carrying a load

D. A horse running a Derby

E. A pet dog protecting its owner’s property